[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 84 (Monday, May 20, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E633-E634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   HOUSE PASSAGE OF THE EQUALITY ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 20, 2019

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to note the House's passage 
of the Equality Act (H.R. 5), to afford nationwide protection against 
discrimination for LGBTQ people in employment, housing, credit, 
education, public service and spaces, federally funded programs and 
federal jury service. Equality for all Americans has long been one of 
my signature issues, but my work for equal treatment for the LGBTQ 
community has had to have an additional dimension. Republicans have 
often tried to use the District of Columbia's unequal status as a 
weapon against the LGBTQ community. Opponents of equality for the LGBTQ 
community have consistently targeted the District to pass their 
discriminatory agenda. I have fought them off at every turn, beginning 
with protecting D.C.'s domestic partnerships law, ahead of its time in 
1992, defending the District's marriage equality and same-sex adoptions 
laws, and protecting D.C.'s law that prohibits religiously affiliated 
schools from denying LGBTQ students access to services and facilities. 
In addition, I recently reintroduced bills to protect LGBTQ jurors from 
discrimination in local D.C. courts, action only Congress

[[Page E634]]

can take because of the requirements of the Home Rule Act, and to end 
the unique applicability of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration 
Act of 1993 to the District.
  The Equality Act is uniquely comprehensive. Historically, when 
Congress has passed civil rights legislation, it typically has done so 
by category, whether in employment, or housing, or the rest. However, 
the Equality Act, encompassing all forms of typical discrimination, 
sends a special message. It is too late for anything except legislation 
that takes on discrimination against our LGBTQ community once and for 
all.
  The Equality Act also fills a large space I have tried to fill ever 
since being elected to Congress. My work for the LGBTQ community has 
come naturally. As a lifelong fighter for equal rights, I have always 
seen congressional failure to address discrimination against the LGBTQ 
community as no different from congressional failure to bar segregation 
in the public schools I attended as a child in the District, or to 
address discrimination in voting rights and public accommodations I 
went to Mississippi to fight as a student in the Student Nonviolent 
Coordinating Committee. The Equality Act stands for the impossibility 
of parsing discrimination. The history of discrimination in the United 
States teaches that all bigotry is unacceptable.

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